Breathing Room

May is very quickly coming to and end. After this week, the kids have one and a half weeks of school left before their first-ever taste of summer vacation.

We’ve (just barely) done it. In one month’s time we’ve moved our old life and all of the crap that managed to accumulate in it out of our old moldy, but oh-so-homey, Spanish bungalow into our new, slightly more roomy and much better laid out (no mold either - a plus) 50’s tract home. The past few weeks have been an exhausting blur of trips back and forth between the two houses in the packed-to-the-brim bus, scrubbing, packing, unpacking, searching for things, shuffling things around, repairing the old house (Brent), beginning a multitude of projects at the new house (Brent again), continuing to meet responsibilities at work, eating take-out at whatever house we happen to be working at around dinner time, collapsing in bed with sore backs and chewed up hands, and reaching for a water glass only to find the cupboard you’ve opened houses the non-perishable food in this new home of yours.

Strangely, we’ve managed to keep our routine pretty much in-tact. In a household full of kids that require routine to stay anxiety-free and let their beautiful, evermore confident selves shine, throwing routine out the window just really wasn’t an option. I think its the routine that has made this move so surreal for me. Waking up on a Monday morning in an entirely new house in an entirely new neighborhood and deciding if I’m going to feed the kids a banana or fresh mango with waffles, scrambled eggs, hot cereal or a bagel and cream cheese (the only Elsa-approved, with 97% certainty you won’t have a melt-down on your hands before school, breakfast foods) for breakfast while encouraging Ashagre to remember to put lotion on his legs and Elsa to get her lotion and shoes on before breakfast, just as I did the day before and the day before that, in our old house has been, at the same time, grounding and disorienting all at once.

Despite our current lack of any living room furniture whatsoever (used much past its prime, all was thrown out during the move) and the many, many boxes that still need to be unpacked, each day we spend in our new house feels more and more homey. The layout is perfect. The extra 200 or so square feet (which manifest themselves in an additional bedroom, half bathroom, enclosed lanai-turned playroom and roomier kitchen) gives each member of our family a little more room to breathe and spread their unique energy around. The extra 200 or so square feet (for a total of 1100 sq. feet) also means that we’re still a family that eats together, knows where everyone is just by taking a second to listen, jockeys for the bathroom during key times of the day, and gets the opportunity to, day-in and day-out, perfect our skills interacting, communicating, and loving within this crazy clan we sometimes refer to as the Coranskis.

Packing up the old house.

Creating a space for the girls at our new house. This chicken coop
will withstand any natural disaster that comes it's way, believe me.

Chicken coop painting crew.